1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to laterally adjacent seating arrangements, such as on public/mass transportation systems, and, more particularly, to an assembly that can be used to create a temporary barrier to prevent intrusion by one seated person into the space of a person seated laterally adjacent to the one person.
2. Background Art
The trend worldwide in mass/public transportation has been to redesign seating so that space is more efficiently utilized. Essentially, this has involved fitting more passengers in the same space. Usually cost savings and efficiency are drivers for this exercise. However, often operators of mass/public transportation systems utilizing trains, buses, airplanes, boats, etc., boost profit at the expense of the comfort of their riders/users, who are not afforded the same volume of space to reside in and oftentimes are in cramped quarters.
Generally, passenger seats, such as on aircraft, are designed in basic travel class to accommodate a person of average build. While some airlines have restrictions that may preclude an exceptionally large person from occupying only a single seat, generally there are no size restrictions on passengers. As a result, passenger comfort is hit-or-miss, depending upon the size of an adjacent passenger or passengers. It is not uncommon for an individual in a middle seat to be bounded by large individuals who take up their own allotted space and additionally intrude into the space intended for the occupant of the middle seat.
When one is confronted with a space shortage, the options are few. He/she can contend with the potential inconvenience/discomfort. This may be practical for short trips. However, for long trips, steps may have to be taken to “protect one's space”.
A passenger may politely (or impolitely) advise an adjacent passenger of his/her space intrusion. Sometimes a situation may be remedied by this approach. However, oftentimes individuals are incapable of keeping their body fully in a small allotted space.
Even in situations where adjacent passengers are not particularly large, there still exists a problem with space intrusion. As people sleep on airlines, they tend to lean or collapse, which may result in individuals shifting head, shoulders, and/or arms into an adjacent passenger's space. Again, a potentially awkward situation arises when an intruding passenger must be confronted.
In spite of the millions of passengers that travel regularly on mass/public transportation systems, heretofore those experiencing the above problems have had few options, other than those described above. Transportation personnel will generally not get involved to remedy these situations. Movement to a special class with wider seating may strain budgets and, in the end, may not eliminate the problem of space intrusion.
The result of the above problems is that passengers are often unhappy and at times attempts between passengers to compromise may escalate to the point that there is outward hostility between passengers who are often required to share a relatively compact space. This becomes an increasing problem as there is a worldwide sensitivity to avoiding any disruption on public/mass transportation because of safety concerns, particularly on large airliners.
The airline, rail, bus, watercraft, etc. industries would welcome any practical solution to the above problems. However, to date no practical solutions, known to the inventor herein, have been devised.